Buying Viagra could become much cheaper from midnight tonight, as the UK patent for the drug expires

A cut-price battle for the £1.5billion market in Viagra begins today after the impotence drug’s patent expired at midnight last night.

With prices predicted to tumble quickly to as little as a tenth of the current rate, men in need of a boost in the bedroom could be able to obtain the little blue pills for as little as 60p each.

Until now, those who do not qualify for an NHS prescription have faced paying up to £6 per tablet.

But while expiration of the patent will make the drug more affordable, it will not make it more easily available, because men will still need a prescription –private or NHS – to get it.

Around a dozen companies are expected to market generic, or non-branded, versions of the impotence drug from today. And at least ten more have also made tablets and have permission to sell them.

Pfizer, which developed Viagra at its plant in Sandwich in Kent, has held the patent since 1990 and sold the drug at a price that allowed it to recoup the money spent on development.

Worldwide, sales are worth almost £1.5billion a year. It will be launching a non-branded version today.

Among its competitors will be Teva, a manufacturer of generic medicines that is the biggest supplier of drugs to the NHS and whose products range from cold treatments to cancer drugs.

A spokesman for the West Yorkshire-based firm said: ‘We fight cat and dog with other companies to be the first on the market when a patent expires.’

Viagra is a blue, diamond-shaped pill and while the copycats will come in different shapes, sizes and colours they will all contain the same active ingredient – a substance called sildenafil.

Most will simply be marketed under that name after satisfying drug regulators that they work as well as the real thing.

Other versions of the blue pill, which will not be available under the same brand name, are predicted to be marketed from tomorrow for as little as 60p per tablet

Cheaper copycat versions will provide enormous savings to the NHS, which spends more than £40million a year on the medicine.

Among patients, the biggest winners
will be those who don’t qualify for pills on the NHS – the 150,000 or so
of the 750,000 Britons who take Viagra each year.

They currently pay around £24 for
four tablets obtained with a private prescription. They are being urged
by Paul Fleming, of the British Generic Manufacturers Association, to
ensure that their doctor makes the prescription out for sildenafil.